Why do you think DC's 4th World books...

[The Shadow]

cant seem to survive in todays market?

The characters are popular enough (or are they?) and have Kirby's pedigree behind them and a long history in the DCU... I just don't get it.

Any thoughts???

[Bat-Mite]

cant seem to survive in todays market?

A lot of things have the same problem. Trying to figure out why some do and why some don't is just a sure way of driving yourself nuts.

and have Kirby's pedigree behind them

That didn't help the Dingbats of Danger Street.

[The Shadow]

That didn't help the Dingbats of Danger Street.
I'm not sure what you are talking about... :confused:

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Because they work better as supporting characters and guest stars than as the stars of a continuing book. Even when Kirby was writing them, they didn't sell that well. I don't see that changing anytime soon, even after Morrison's hip-hop revamp of them.

[palaeomerus]

I'm not sure what you are talking about... :confused:

Ding Bats of Dannger Street (http://ape-law.com/GAF/Page19/)

I think that the Fourth world stuff is pretty inconsistent. Some of it was absolutely brilliant and powerful(like the story of theWar between worlds and the pact) some of it was just Orion lamely ranting in bad comic book "wanna-be literary" monologue mode about "Gentle Seafriend" and "the fires that ever burn at the heart of troubled Orion!"

Also modern types tend to play around with it a lot. They kill Highfather(too uncomfortably Moses like for some? Or maybe he seems like a cult leader?) and replace him with "Takion" who looks like a generic Valiant univers version of Firestorm (just like Wave Rider of the Linear men did).

They bring back dead characters like Kalibak, Desaad, Steppenwolf, and Esaak the traitor thus robbing their deaths of meaning.(Oh sure they claim that Darkseid releases hold of his slaves not even in death but... c'mon!)

They come up with cockamamie theories about Apokalips and New Genesis being the same planet (As opposed to twin survivor worlds expelled from the catastrophe that ended of the war of the old gods) and they turn the chained giants of the Promethian galaxy into the "Source Wall" (Not the wall of the Unifriend but the giant, stone wall of tesselating, crucified statues with eye beams that makes barrier that protects the "source" and everyone is trying to piece it.) and they make up retro characters like Yuga Khan...

(I like Byrne's stuff but not what he did with the Fourth World)

Oh sure the Source Wall as currently protrayed would make one hell of a nice backdrop for an opera by Wagner...

But I always thought the Promethian galaxy full of galaxy sized hubris driven scientists with billion year heart beats left as a warning for the unwise and curious like Metron... that was cooler.

And then there are all the people who seem to want to write the ending or future of the Fourth world or modify the hell out of it so sift out all the dumb parts(which for many are the cool parts).

To put it succinctly the Fourth world has been whored out pretty hard.

[Sean Whitmore]

cant seem to survive in todays market?


Today's? Was there a time they DID survive? ;)

Personally, the only aspects of the New Gods that ever worked for me were the character of Mister Miracle, and the prophecy that Orion and Darkseid would fight to the death.

And since Orion and Darkseid have fought to the (apparent) death SEVERAL times now, even that ceases to be a draw.

Still, I've always felt the New Gods were just one Dini/Timm direct-to-video movie away from becoming insanely popular.


SEAN

[The Shadow]

even after Morrison's hip-hop revamp of them.
thanks guys

I didn't know Morrison was revamping them... when's that out???

[Sean Whitmore]

I didn't know Morrison was revamping them... when's that out???


Mister Miracle #1, out last week.


SEAN

[Grant]

I love The Fourth World characters but lets face it they're either way too odd or silly to really appeal to most comic fans who prefer a much more serious take especially these days. And whenever you take away the oddness and silliness they just stop being interesting.

[Grant]

Still, I've always felt the New Gods were just one Dini/Timm direct-to-video movie away from becoming insanely popular.

I heard they kept trying to pitch one but Warners doesn't want to spend the money.

[Calybos]

I think assuming that they're popular is a mistake. The New Gods have been a bad idea from the outset, despite Jack Kirby's distinguished name. Even Shakespeare wrote the occasional piece of crap, you know.

[The Adventurer]

It's because Cosmic level adventures with god like characters is considered too "retro" in these "Realistic" comic dominated times.


The times of Kirby Dots and Super science will come back around again in a few years...I hope. Just not right now.

[The Mirrorball Man]

In my opinion, the problem is that the reader doesn't have any character he can relate to. Orion is usually used as the protagonist, and he is larger-than-life and very brutal. Morrison's approach, which is apparently to have Shilo Norman become the new Mister Miracle, could be interesting, because at least, Shilo is a pretty normal guy, and we can see this outlandish world through his eyes.

[protonik]

The Fourth World fails post Kirby because they are not easy to write. There were aspects that Kirby brought out of the characters that relied on his knowledge of where the stories were going. Without that edge the characters become 2 dimensional personalities, aside from Darkseid. The New Gods especially seem to falter from this problem while Mr. Miracle and Barda don't seem to have the same problem. Their books didn't fail in the same way. The previous M.M. series was folded into New Gods and the series before that went away when the creative team stepped aside. Kirby was creating a mythology and not a superhero series and that is the other failure of New Gods post Jack.

The Fourth world was also so far ahead of its time but now seems quaint, in spite of the epic scope of the story. On the one hand, it is a timeless story but on the other, so was the Edda.

[cactusmaac]

It's hard to get much juice out of an ongoing New Gods series it's a big, mythic epic that doesn't lend itself very well to soap opera or the illusion of change.

[Bat-Mite]

But then again, Soap Opera and the illusion of change is not the only way to write them.

[Sean Whitmore]

It's hard to get much juice out of an ongoing New Gods series it's a big, mythic epic that doesn't lend itself very well to soap opera or the illusion of change.


That's true. It's not like Superman, who just flies around all the time fighting different crimes. The 4th World stuff is predicated on the eventual final battle between New Genesis and Apokolips. If you show the final battle, everything changes. If you dance around it too long, the characters stagnate.

New Gods would probably work great as one long, finite series with a definitive ending, like many of the Vertigo books.


SEAN

[Grant]

It's because Cosmic level adventures with god like characters is considered too "retro" in these "Realistic" comic dominated times.


The times of Kirby Dots and Super science will come back around again in a few years...I hope. Just not right now.


Are you reading GODLAND?

[The Adventurer]

No, I can't find issue #1, but as soon as I find it (or the first trade comes out) I will be.

[Gingold]

I always thought of the 4th World books as the Velvet Underground of comics. Never sold particularly well, but incredibly influential and appreciated by those in the know.

Kirby's 4th world stuff was ahead of its time. I think if his versions of the stuff had come out later, and editorial had allowed him more control and time to find an audience, they would've succeeded. Later attempts at the titles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. They're seen as either desecrating Kirby's vision or simply retreading stuff Kirby already did (and did better).

Walt Simonson's Orion is the best non-Kirby version of these characters, but it never caught on for some reason. I like what I've seen of Morrison's Mr. Miracle- maybe he'll break the jinx.

[Emerald Ghost]

That's true. It's not like Superman, who just flies around all the time fighting different crimes. The 4th World stuff is predicated on the eventual final battle between New Genesis and Apokolips. If you show the final battle, everything changes. If you dance around it too long, the characters stagnate.

New Gods would probably work great as one long, finite series with a definitive ending, like many of the Vertigo books.


SEAN

They should do an All-Stars Fourth World, and have it climax with the final battle. ;)

[Paul Newell]

I always thought of the 4th World books as the Velvet Underground of comics. Never sold particularly well, but incredibly influential and appreciated by those in the know.

I remember reading somewhere, I'll see if I can find it, that the Fourth World titles actually sold a lot better than DC let on. It was more the fact that DC didn't think that they were marketable and wanted Kirby to produce something more mainstream. They wanted something to sell to kids rather than that "weird college crowd".

I do know that they cancelled New Gods and Forever People so that he could write and draw Kamandi and The Demon.

*Evokes the spirit of Mark Evanier for guidance*

[Grant]

I always thought of the 4th World books as the Velvet Underground of comics. Never sold particularly well, but incredibly influential and appreciated by those in the know.

I always thought of them as the Peter Gabriel era Genesis of comics.

[berk]

Kirby's 4th World was not only ahead of its time when it first came out; it still is. The comic book readership and mainstream editorial thinking have never caught up to it, IMO, which is why people think they only work as supporting characters. As protonik and others pointed out, this was never a superhero story in the sense that term has come to take on. In fact, in a way it's the exact opposite of what superhero stories have become. Suerhero stories have largely become focused on the power-fantasy aspect, IMO, not only at the level of the individual who thrills vicariously to Batman's badassedness, the Hulk's unmatchable strength, or Superman'scombination of ultimate physical power and moral rectitude; but, even more deeply perhaps, at the cultural level they represent the 20th/21st century cultural hubris which has developed in response to our technological advances. We think we've "conquered" nature (i.e the universe) with science, and I believe that our superheroes represent to us, at some deep unspoken level, the science and technology that's encouraged this illusion. (Alan Moore was spot on when he called them "science-heroes"). So we get nonsensical story tropes that help support our illusion of triumph over our environment. Not only the obviously silly stuff like Superman tossing moons around or whatever, but things such as the idea that there's no alien technology so advanced that Reed Richards can't figure it out after a few all-nighters; there's no galactic being evolved so far beyond humanity that he can't be given a lecture in morality by one of our earth-heroes. And so on and so on.

Kirby's two big epics, the Fourth World and the Eternals, are very different from each other, but they share one general characteristic: neither is about patting ourselves on the back about how great we (human beings) are. On the contrary, they're all about exploring things greater than ourselves - ideas, beings, worlds beyond the human, all too human. And they're about what's inside ourselves, too, but not in the shallow psychological sense we find in too many (not all) superhero books. All this is anathema to what the superhero genre has become. We can't abide the idea of something greater than ourselves because the whole superhero fantasy is meant to reinforce our adolescent illusions of strength, power, righteousness, etc. Which is one reason why, when the New Gods appear in the JLA or Superman, they tend to be used as cannon fodder for the more popular heroes. The New Gods, at one level, represent something beyond the human, so we have to shore up our shaky sense of self-worth by having our proxies overcome them, whether physically or morally.

[Viking Bastard]

Yeah and Darkseid is totally badarse, too!

What?

[berk]

No, I can't find issue #1, but as soon as I find it (or the first trade comes out) I will be. Did you know you can read it on-line? That's how I got hooked. Go to the Godland website (http://www.godlandonline.com/) and click on "Previews" on the left-hand side. There's an article by Casey called "the Genre" that's a very interesting read as well. I still haven't found a copy of #3 yet, though; ordered it from a local shop, but it hasn't arrived yet.

[GeorgeG]

I think the characters are very good. It's just that I don't think anyone at DC (editorial) knows how to use them very well.

[hondobrode]

They are complicated concepts to get ahold of. The reason that they haven't done well is that they were never completely fleshed out by Kirby and most everyone else who has had a hand in the characters doesn't want to wander too far from Kirby when in fact they're just going through the motions that Kirby was only just beginning.

People don't read cosmic. I don't buy that for a minute. Have the characters been mishandled ? Probably more so than most, but they could be rebooted by Grant or someone inspired but not constrained by Kirby. Maybe Gaiman or even Millar. With a top notch writer and a good artist, New Gods could be one of DC's top books. I'm sure of it and hope they take a crack at it with a top notch team.

All Star should be for the big icons. Just give us a completely new version after Crisis and go from there.

[Shellhead]

I love The Fourth World characters but lets face it they're either way too odd or silly to really appeal to most comic fans who prefer a much more serious take especially these days. And whenever you take away the oddness and silliness they just stop being interesting.

Agreed. I like Darkseid, Metron and Mister Miracle, but the rest seemed very corny-looking and too eccentric to ever be cool. It's possible that Morrison will come up with a new approach that will work, but the first issue of the new Mister Miracle didn't win me over. So far, it seems like the weakest issue in the Seven Soldiers maxi.

[berk]

The perception of corniness, silliness, and so on comes I thinnk partly from Kirby's idiosyncratic dialogue and certain specific characters such as Virman Vundabar and Glorious Godfrey. At least, I hope so. If readers find Orion or Lonar or Barda silly, there isn't much I can say: we're on such completely different wavelengths there wouldn't be enough common ground to even have a conversation.

The dialogue can definitely strike an awkward note, especially when compared to writers skilled in capturing the tone of contemporary everyday conversation (or even the highly formularized imitation of it we hear on tv). But as the years go by, I find more and more to admire in Kirby's writing. He had a great way of encapsulating the essence of both his characters and his themes in just a few telling phrases that was extremely effective IMO. It certainly doesn't sound like everyday conversation, but I don't think it really hasd to, given the kind of cosmic epics he was creating, any more than his artwork had to emulate real life as (supposedly) certain other artists do. Kirby truly created a world of his own, with both his pictures and his words, and in the end, it has to be experienced on its own terms if its to be fully appreciated. I wouldn't change a word.

I tend to agree with the idea that it's a concept that was meant to have a beginning and an end, unlike the open-ended soap-operas more popular characters have fallen into. I'm not sure I want to see any more attempts at reinventing the New Gods, although I'm trying to give Morrison's latest a chance. I think I could enjoy them as variations on the theme - Walt Simonson's Orion series often worked for me from that viewpoint, although there were several aspects I disliked; but no matter how accomplished, they'll never eclipse the original.

[Bat-Mite]

neither is about patting ourselves on the back about how great we (human beings) are.

Dude, there is an issue of New Gods where Turpin and the Metropolis police alone take down Kalibak.

[Zylly's Dad]

cant seem to survive in todays market?

The characters are popular enough (or are they?) and have Kirby's pedigree behind them and a long history in the DCU... I just don't get it.

Any thoughts???

As a long time reader having bought forth world titles off the shelf, I think that that even then they were a half born idea. kirby had real good concepts and that was all.
If you look at all the heroes that survive over time they have something at thier core that sets them apart. The fourth world was only part way their, they were raw concepts and nothing more. In my opinion because thats how they were born, as half an idea, everyone eles has added to in a way that has just made them more confusing. They serve much better supporting charectures in books. I truly think thats where they belong.

[berk]

Dude, there is an issue of New Gods where Turpin and the Metropolis police alone take down Kalibak. Mmmm ... debateable, IMO. It's an interesting story, and I'd go so far as to agree that one of its points was indeed Turpin's INdomitable spirit. So what prevents it from falling into the same category as those other examples I mentioned? A few things. First, it's a single story, within a larger series that contains many counter-examples. Two, the tone of the story focuses on the tremendous power of the two superhuman combatants, Kalibak and Orion, and how off-the-scale their battle is in comparison to the human bystanders. Three, Kalibak is just barely stopped and contained by blacking out the entire city after he's been weakened by an epic fight with Orion; and later on the city (police? I forget) officials realise that they can't continue to hold him because they're expending all their energy resources just to maintain his prison; they let him out to negotiate, he breaks his bonds, to their shock, and escapes. Four, Turpin himself - he's a supporting character, a middle-aged detective who wears a suit & tie; in other words, and not at all a typical superhero-power-fantasy - quite the opposite, in fact. Fifth, the general tone of the story (and I acknowledge that this is entirely subjective; you don't have to share my view) is not one of triumph; it's more one of an epic struggle provisionally ended by a desperate ploy.

None of this obviates the fact that one of the points of the story is that Turpin and his fellow humans stand up to the tremendous power of these beings and succeed in temporarily averting the disaster they threaten to bring upon the city. But the success is provisional and temporary, the implication is not that a final victory has been achieved but that a stop-gap measure has allowed a little breathing space. The entire tone of the story seesm to me to be far removed from that of the typical superhero story.

[Bat-Mite]

But the success is provisional and temporary

When are things final in superhero comics?

[titanfan]

The characters are popular enough (or are they?) and have Kirby's pedigree behind them and a long history in the DCU... I just don't get it.

I don't think that the characters are popular enough, at least not as star players. Frankly, if Kirby didn't create the characters, I don't think DC would continually try to push a 4th world series.

I've read all of the 4th world series in the past 20 years, but the only characters who really stand out to me have been Mr. Miracle/Barda/Darkseid and the Female Furies.

[berk]

When are things final in superhero comics? Things are final in two separate but related senses: one, in that they're repeated over and over with only superficial variation; two, each individual iteration of the repeating pattern is felt as a complete victory and vindication of the heroes for that story (sure we know that the bad guys will come back in another story down the road, but that's just part of the pattern). Both these are in contrast the Turpin story, which is not a repeating scenario in the context of the New Gods, and in which the victory isn't really a victory but a hard-won stalemate that was only achieved through last-minute desperation and that cannot be maintained for long.

I looked at the story again, and found my impressions reinforced. What comes through to me is that the story isn't really about the victory of Turpin and the defeat of Kalibak (i.e. the triumph of humanity over whatever forces or concepts you think Kalibak represents, if any). It's about the necessity of coming to terms with those forces without being overwhelmed by them. Turpin and his fellow humans stand their ground, with great difficulty, against the threat of Kalibak, but in the follow-up a couple issues later, they face the reality of the situation: they can't hold this monster and still live; they have to negotiate, come to terms with him and what he represents, literally and figuratively (the humans offer their city as a neutral ground for negotiations between the two sides of this cosmic war, and Kalibak is asked to bring this message to his master on Apokolips; I'll leave the figurative aspect unspoken) - and there are indications that there may be hope for success in this endeavour (Kalibak breaks loose, but doesn't attack them, and it is surmised that he'll keep his word and bring the message to Apokolips).

One of the reasons Kirby's work is so often misunderstood is that fans tend to interpret them in terms of what they're most familiar with: the patterns, standards, character types and so on of the superhero genre. And they just don't fit those patterns. So readers find them "odd" and even "silly" - not surprisingly.